Deadly Wands (24 page)

George dismissed the thought with a harsh
laugh. "What's with the backpacks?”

"Your bonuses." Billy dumped the two heaviest
onto him, practically burying him under one hundred gold bricks.
"For thirteen years of fighting imperialism."

In the ensuing confusion, Billy sat on his
great-uncle's cot and whispered to him. “Do you recognize this
suit? Your grandfather gave it to your brother, who gave it to me.
I’m Elizabeth's son, Billy, but please introduce me as the Red
Baron."

George now recognized the red armor, his eyes
huge with excitement. No sooner did the Mongols leave than George's
Englishmen filled up the room.

"You called us, sir?"

"No," the prince answered. “The Red Baron
here did. You remember the Baron? The guy who somehow convinced the
Americans to give one hundred thousand backpacks full of loot to
the Free Europe Air Force? Who didn’t share any with us? Red, here,
finally heard how the king forgot to include us.”

Billy had no idea. “After I killed the
nearest Mongol battalion, I emptied their vault and kidnapped their
medical unit as air mules to deliver your bonuses. I don't know how
many of you are left, but I want the valuables divided equally in
thanks for fighting for so long against so many despite numbering
so few." With that he started dumping the other backpacks on the
floor. "All this is yours. Go back to England."

Excited cheers rang out, until one of them
spoiled the mood.

"We can't," one of them said in disgust.
"Queen Margaret exiled us thirteen years ago."

"Good thing she's dead, then," Billy
answered. "Along with Prince John and his entire family. Global
Bank is loaning the crown one thousand tons of gold to boost the
economy. Sir Richard, the king's first-born, is setting up
mass-production factories to make excellent armor like my own, and
opening more bank branches overseas. All of you have jobs waiting
for you. Prince George, your brother Richard is now king, your land
has been returned, and you’re again a duke. You have some
experience running a mass production factory making longbows.
Perhaps you'll consider running the armor factory. Although I’d
also like to start making more seaworthy versions of those new
steel-hull steamships.”

Somebody laughed and clearly no one believed
him, so Billy showed them London’s news reports. Even the headlines
failed to convince them.

"Baron, I'm not sure what you're selling, but
I'm buying," one of the Englishwomen joked. "Did you really take
all this gold from an enemy air base?"

"Yes. The Mongols pay the first of every
month, so they're loaded right now.” An idea hit Billy like a rock.
“Hey, would anyone like to raid with me? Every Mongol fighter will
be over the front lines. Usually they have nothing worth taking at
those temporary bases, but tomorrow’s payday, so each will have
literally a ton of gold that's ours for the taking. We could hit
several air bases today. Most quads in the Mongol Air Force are
foreigners who won’t work if they don’t get paid. That alone would
blunt the offensive, and give the French time to decimate their
ground forces. The Mongols have cost all of you dearly. I think
it's time they paid. Preferably in gold and silver."

The cheering of his team brought color back
to George's face, who blessed the venture.

CHAPTER 29

The English wouldn’t return to England while
the Mongols still threatened Paris, so he put them to work as
golden air mules.

Billy remembered how carefully his father
organized his raids. The Mongols didn’t yet know about Billy’s ten
thousand marathoners, so his goal was to hit them as hard as
possible, as frequently as possible, for as long as possible.

They first bombed the Mongol High Command
headquarters to decapitate resistance, then they targeted the
largest air units near Scandinavia to misdirect them. One of the
Americans grew up there, so he gave a speech in Nordic claiming all
of Scandinavia had declared war on the Empire. He’d have been
laughed at if ten thousand quads didn’t stand at attention behind
him. The fools assumed the Americans were the Scandinavian or
Russian divisions his father started, and so massed troops north to
punish them, leaving fewer quads to defend Billy’s real
targets.

As Mongols tried to figure out what was
happening, Billy struck across Europe. Dropping bombs they stole
from munition depots, they decimated enemy forces far behind the
front lines. The Mongols didn’t have any long-distance battalions
because they didn’t need them with a static front line, and so
didn’t have any units capable of chasing the Americans down.

Destroying Mongol air units left their banks,
businesses, depots, government offices, and logistical network at
their mercy. The front line collapsed as the High Command
redeployed thousands of quads to guard banks and bases.

It took the Mongols several expensive weeks
to discover they were American marathoners based out of the
Pyrenees. They sent fifty thousand quads to destroy them. First
Billy wiped out their high-altitude units, then bombed the rest
with impunity. Each battalion rotated hourly so the Mongols
couldn’t sleep.

A day before they reached the Pyrenees, Billy
smashed them after sunset. But, instead of bombing from high
altitude, they hugged the terrain at full speed. Striking from all
sides, the Americans made one pass, shooting those on or near the
ground. That night, one company bombed every hour to keep the
Mongols awake. Exhausted quads shoot weak fireballs.

Before dawn, nine thousand Americans hit them
from their rear, but stayed to roll them up. The Mongols had spread
out their camp over a vast area to reduce the odds of getting hit
by bombs. Units responding to the attack ran into a nine thousand
quad wall half a kilometer high that chewed them up. The Mongols
still had three times as many quads, but the Americans outnumbered
the Mongols who fought at any given moment. In the dark, the
exhausted Mongols had no way of knowing how many enemies they
faced, and the commander feared they’d also be attacked from other
directions. The Americans slowly swept over the camp. At daylight,
they hunted down those who escaped.

Many of the Europeans fighting for the Mongol
Air Force promptly switched sides after payday, killing Mongols on
their way out. Better yet, Mongols never trusted non-Mongols within
their ranks after that, driving even more quads away.

Billy heard that American Jack was recruiting
an African division, so he transferred enough gold and wands to
train them -- some super, some high altitude, and some
long-distance battalions.

The Great Khan couldn’t let the Baron raid
Europe with impunity, so he sent one hundred of his new marathon
battalions. They were finally enjoying success against the elusive
raiders in Central Asia, but the prospect of losing Europe trumped
all that.

These new troops negated the advantages that
the Americans enjoyed, so Billy went for surprise. As soon as he
heard, he took his raiders across Europe and, a week later,
ambushed the Mongol marathoners outside Warsaw.

Billy’s division overwhelmed Warsaw’s largest
munitions supply depot after sunset, then bombed the sleeping
marathoners from ten directions at low altitude at midnight. The
Mongols didn’t expect to get hit so far from the Pyrenees.

One hundred thousand quads need a lot of
room, so each of Billy’s battalions attacked in a kilometer-long
skirmish line at treetop level. Maximizing surprise minimized
casualties. Furious, the survivors launched, unable to wait for
their units to form up.

Every unit commander typically designates 10%
of his troops as a rapid-reaction force. Those ten battalions, or
what was left of them, rose immediately. Flying as units made them
more dangerous.

Billy’s ten battalions used their momentum to
rise steeply after sweeping the camp and pounced on the nearest
enemy unit just getting off the ground. It was easy to distinguish
between orderly formations and thousands of airmen flying
individually. The Americans hit them from above until the formation
broke into confused pieces.

The Americans then swept over the mob rising
towards them, firing down into the mass of men. Nine of Billy’s
units slowly rose while shooting volleys, and the tenth broke into
squads to clear the skies above them. Without large units, they
faced an angry mob. It was like fighting a bar full of drunks.

Not all Mongols rose at once, since many
helped the wounded or were stunned, dear, or blind from the bombs,
so the Mongols didn’t even enjoy overwhelming numbers. While the
American battalions covered each other, the enemy didn’t attack at
the same time or at the same place, much less fly around to strike
from above.

At dawn, the Americans slaughtered the
wounded, chased down survivors, and packed the valuables. By noon,
they surprised the nearest enemy units, then emptied Bank of
Mongolia branches since the enemy could not stop them.

Billy called a meeting after dinner. Ten
thousand troops looked up at him on a hill, where he used his wand
to amplify his voice.

“We are so weighted down that we can only
average half our usual distance. One hundred thousand enemy quads
are within a thousand clicks, and will now be hunting us down.

“The enemy knows where we are and where home
is, so they’ll throw everything that have at us. If we fly as a
division, they’ll spot us. If we break up into companies, they’ll
kill us. So we cannot stay here and we cannot go home. What do you
want to do?”

Atop a boulder, Billy heard more curses than
suggestions. “Tiny, got any ideas?”

“I hear Madagascar is nice this time of
year.”

“They’ll mobilize every resource, but for how
long? Apart from these marathoners, we’ve already killed a few
hundred thousand enemies in Europe. Every quad assigned to us is
not killing Frenchmen or guarding gold. How long can they wait
until those men are needed back at their old jobs? The French will
endanger their lines. Bandits will rob banks. Rebels will empty
supply depots. Can they afford to maintain their mobilization for
one month? Two? Three months?”

Billy examined their faces to see who saw
where he was heading.

“You’re not my only employees in danger. Our
brothers and sisters in Central Asia can’t go home because a huge
force blocks the Bering Strait. That division is what made our
success possible because they forced the Khan to strip Europe of
its best quads. Without those heroes keeping half a million quads
busy in Siberia, many of you would now be dead.

“Tiny told me that our sister division had to
break up into companies to hide and forage better. They’ll starve
this winter. Imagine them dying of hunger beside the huge fortune
they’ve accumulated. Many of you trained alongside them at American
University. These are friends, not strangers.

“By spring, they’ll be dead and their plunder
lost. Many of you will have to replace them in Siberia or else the
Khan will send those Mongols to France. Genghis will finally
conquer Europe and then exterminate the Americas.”

Billy now hovered over their gloomy faces,
thousands of eyes glued to him. Hovering is actually very hard, but
he made it look easy. The Red Baron theatrically raised his arms to
the heavens. “Oh, if only those heroes had friends with a few
months to kill!”

The dark mood lightened instantly and their
laughter thundered across the grassy hills.

“Joining our sister division doubles our
combat strength. The Mongols broke up into battalions to chase our
companies, which makes killing them safer and easier. I say we
deposit our loot in Helsinki, then take a tour of Siberia!”

The thunderous applause elated him. He could
feel his father smiling down at him.

By the time they reached the Bering Strait,
the Americans killed many times their number, including most of the
specialty quads that worried Billy.

While the marathoners exhausted the blocking
force, Billy had the near-marathoners bomb them from the other
side. Blowing a hole in the human wall, the marathoners crossed
into Alaska hauling a year’s worth of plunder to enjoy the winter
with their families.

Billy didn’t want to kill them all; he just
wanted to bleed them so that the Khan kept replacing them. Billy
would rather have enemies at the Bering Strait than in France. Just
feeding them, thousands of kilometers from the nearest farm, tied
up support personnel who’d otherwise do something useful for the
war effort.

The smarter move would have been for Genghis
to gather his total strength and invade the Americas. But, instead
of flying where the Americans hid underground bunkers, attack where
they were least expected -- like the American east coast.

Mongol editorials ripped The Great Khan. A
new giant walked the earth, and he barely stood five feet tall.

With Mongols no longer threatening France,
Billy could finally take his uncle home.

CHAPTER 30

Winter in Paris felt warmer than summer in
Siberia. Billy couldn’t believe almost a year had passed.

He sent a greeting as he descended to his
great-uncle’s estate outside Paris. A few hundred English quads,
from an original battalion of one thousand, occupied the barn. They
spent the last several months moving coin to England while George
got used to his new leg. Billy wanted to make a big deal out of
their official return, so he asked them to fly back as a group just
before the first anniversary of King Richard’s coronation. George
came out to meet him, while his wife and thirteen year old son
waited outside their front door.

"You've done well for yourself, uncle," Billy
concluded after looking around. "Not many gay men have beautiful
wives."

"Marie developed a crush on me after our
first great victory saving Paris. A thousand quads can really
influence a battlefield. The French had no idea we were coming." He
laughed. "Neither did the Mongols! When the French discovered we
were all unpaid volunteers, well, the appreciation was
overwhelming. The king's young niece seemed infatuated with me, and
I needed protection against the inevitable rumors, so I let the
king marry us and grant us this estate. I never dreamed I’d have a
son that looks like me. Thank goodness for alcohol. Until he turned
four, I assumed he was not mine.”